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"I rejoiced when they said to me, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord.'" ~ Psalm 122  After a long renovation process, the sanctuary of the Cathedral finally reached a point where the Bishop could dedicate the sanctuary and consecrate the altars. We have been waiting for this day and were delighted to be able to celebrate such a wonderful liturgy on the Solemnity of the Annunciation.
 The Bishop, Bishop Emeritus, clergy and servers enter the sanctuary for the Mass of Dedication
The relics of the saints resting on a red cushion by the Bishop Emeritus, waiting to be sepulchered in the altars.
 The Deacon of the Relics, assisted by the Master of Ceremonies, places the relics in the High Altar. After the relics are placed in the altar, the Bishop anoints the mensa. The Bishop pours the sacred chrism on the middle of the altar and on each of its four corners before anointing the entire mensa. The anointing with chrism makes the altar a symbol of Christ, who is "The Anointed One". 
 The altars are clothed with the sacred linens and prepared for the lighting of the altars.  "Light of Christ, shine forth in the Church and bring all peoples to the fullness of truth."
 The Holy Sacrifice is offered on the newly consecrated altar and Our Lord is placed in the tabernacle for the first time.  Receiving Communion at the rail for the first time. "God is in his holy dwelling place; the God who causes us to dwell together, one at heart, in his house; he himself will give power and strength to his people." Communion Antiphon Additional pictures here
"Every person is what he loves. Love becomes like unto that which it loves. If it loves heaven, it becomes heavenly; if it loves the carnal as a god, it becomes corruptible. The kind of immortaily we have depends on the kind of loves we have. Putting it negatively, he who tells you what he does not love, also tells you what he is. Amor pondus meum: "Love is my gravitation," said St. Augustine. This slow conversion of a subject into an object, of a lover into the beloved, of the miser into his gold, of the saint into his God, discloses the importance of loving the right things. The nobler our loves, the nobler our character. To love what is below the human, is degradation; to love what is human for the sake of the human, is mediocrity; to love the human for the sake of the Divine, is enriching; to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity." ~ Venerable Fulton J. Sheen  Sister praying the Stations of the Cross under the loving gaze of Our Lady
 Flight into Egypt by Alexander Bida "O St. Joseph, happy are you to whom it was given not only to see and hear that God whom so many desired to see and saw not, to hear and heard not, but even to carry Him in your arms, to embrace Him, to clothe Him, to watch over Him....
 "In the holy season of Lent, the Church sets out once again on the path leading to Easter. With Jesus as her guide, and walking in his footsteps, she invites us to cross the desert." ~ St. John Paul II  As an aid in our Lenten journey, the Sisters made a simple shrine honoring our Sorrowful Mother outside of the Chapel. This shrine is also our Stational Church shrine, enabling us to enter each day into the pilgrimage of the Church in Rome. Each time we come to or go from prayer, we are reminded that we are pilgrims on our way to the eternal Easter. 
This increased conventual (and personal) stillness is not a separation from our mission of evangelization. Far from it! This Lent has been a particularly beautiful Lent of apostolic endeavors. The Sisters sang with the choir for the Rite of Election, visited the SSU Newman Center, facilitated the Sodality Consecration, sang a Requiem High Mass, spoke to the young people on the Pan de Vida retreat, spent time the students of Kolbe/Trinity School, and our Lord has planned many more apostolic adventures for Lent, in addition to the gift of our daily duties. It is the conventual silence and recollection with our Spouse that enables us to serve Him in the service of other souls. Our Lady of Grace Sodality, one of our apostolates, celebrated the Marian consecration of one of its members on First Saturday. The Sodality is a group of young ladies who are committed to growing in personal holiness and serving their parish community through their consecration to Jesus through Mary. The young women of this Sodality have chosen as their secondary patron Venerable Teresita Quevedo, a lively Spanish Sodalist who lived her Sodality consecration to our Lady with heroic virtue. Her Sodality motto was, "May all who see me, see thee, O Mary!" Dying at the young age of twenty, she is recognized as a model of personal holiness and a special friend of Sodalists. During the consecration ceremony, the candidate makes her Marian consecration and receives a blessed garment as an outward sign of her consecration and her association with the Sodality. The Sodality consecration was followed by the newly elected officers making their Sodality pledges. |
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